Ha! Lots of things changed before LOTR finally saw the light of day. And it almost never got published.
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What didn’t change was endless songs jfc 
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This is why I gave up on War and Peace after one chapter.
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We are having a virtual office holiday party with a talent show, and not only are some of my coworkers insanely talented guitar players, but one of the engineers is doing a “how to make a paper airplane” demonstration and it is like the most wholesome thing I have seen in a long time.
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It was super busy on the pavement back to my house today, so I walked through the play park instead.
My tiny victory is that I went on the zip wire in the dark and thoroughly enjoyed it 
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Heated electric throw.
Also, not snowing here. Not going to snow here, at least not in the next few days.
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Why?
I can’t even stand to read his more digestible books. I have found a pattern that I just cannot read a book that starts with a map. I DGAF where the shire is - just tell me how far they walked and through what and I will envision it. I read maps in real life, but not as stories.
This makes me even more of an outlier here…
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but what if they SING about where the shire is?
(sorry ya’ll I enjoy the stories but all the fucking songs in those books. i just can’t.)
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I just assumed his edits are like my edits on OMD - 99% of the time I’m just adding to the word count.
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I don’t read music or anything - so I might have problems processing that (imagining what it sounds like).
Whistle while you work, toot-to-toot-toot-toot-toot-toot,
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I love Tolkien with all my 
But I always skip over the songs 
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I don’t do songs. I just can’t. They’re so weird
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Aw man, I love the maps and the songs. (I am, generally, the type of nerd for whom Tolkien is the perfect storm.)
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Makes sense, since he was first and foremost a linguist! And designed all the languages before he wrote any of the stories, lol.
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Yeppppppp.
My undergrad department had a department review during my senior year, which is a thing where the department brings people from outside the uni in to basically review the department and tell them how they’re doing. There were ten majors graduating my year, which was actually a little big, and they got all of us in a room so that they could ask questions about our experiences in the undergrad program. When they asked us how we had found linguistics (a very fair question), literally half of us responded “Tolkien.”
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Maps I like. Songs… Actually, I think the change in the flow bothers me more than the song/poetry. I get very bothered when my usual eye movement doesn’t work as well
I have some experimentation to do
Though I like his more than the knock off ones every other fantasy author makes because I guess they feel like they have to?
Edited a typo that was bothering me
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Yes to maps, songs, Elvish. Whole kit and caboodle, yes, please.
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I so did some experimentation on this and while I do get some weirdness from changing the alignment of standard prose from justified to left aligned with narrower margins, it is, in fact, the songs that drive me batty.
Speaking of songs, did anyone see the animated LotR from the 70s-ish? Not the hobbit, the others. Those are a trip! And I’ve now had the “Where there’s a whip, there’s a way” orc song stuck in my head since this conversation started. Though that might belong over the the TC thread.
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My company just announced they will be repaying the full amount of reduced salaries/furlough money from Covid cuts earlier this year. This will barely affect me because I was only furloughed for a week but I am SO happy for so many of my coworkers that have worked super hard and as well that my company is in a financial position to be able to do this at this point.
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